Cannes 2022: Fest Launches with Zombies, Art Movies, and Maverick | Festivals & Awards

The next day I caught “Alma Viva,” Cristèle Alves Meira story of a young girl named Salome (played the director’s wide-eyed daughter, Lua Michel). The film mixes the supernatural with near documentary-like precision, bringing forth the Portuguese village setting in a keen way. It’s a quiet, introspective film with an understated setting despite the clear familial turmoil that’s exposed. The result feels more unsettled than unsettling, lacking either a strong burst of genre payback or even something beyond the expected as the sibling breakdowns intensify. 

After such quiet, it was quite the switch to attend an interview session with the festival’s biggest name draw, Tom Cruise. The Debussy theatre was packed for the chat with Didier Lalouche, and it was clear that Cruise was on a mission to make his point. While highly entertaining, charismatic, even magnetic at times, if one had to sum up the hour-long conversation it would be some form of “learn all aspects of your craft,” “support movie theatres,” and “I do it for the audience”.

This again takes nothing away from the effect that this Hollywood star continues to have on audiences both in person and on the big screen. That sense of him being a dying breed was at least part of the undercurrent of what was discussed. There were some great stories of humility, and others that showed off the extent that he contributed even when working under masters like Kubrick. Sitting mere feet away from him, it remains unnerving just how charismatic he can be in person, an aura that the motion picture camera has been managing to exploit now for decades.

The next morning, after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, I got to see “Top Gun: Maverick”. It screened, delightfully, in the newly renamed Agnes Varda Theatre. I’d love to think that Varda herself was there in spirit, wryly smiling at the beautiful men and women on screen, the erotic machines, and the boisterous soundtrack. From the opening note and “Simpson/Bruckheimer” logo you know the nostalgia is going to be blasted up to full afterburner, but I was genuinely thrilled that they expanded the storyline to near mythic levels, borrowing from everything from “The Dam Busters” to (more overtly) “Star Wars” to provide its structure.